EvidenceBased Implications for Gesture and Play in Early Language Development

1
Evidence-Based Implications for Gesture and Play
in Early Language Development

• Emily Rusnak
• ASHA Convention
• Chicago, IL
• November 2008

www.literacytrust.org.uk
2
Overview of Discussion

• Learner Outcomes
• What is Cognition?
• Gesture Development
• What is gesture?
• Types and functions of gesture
• Connecting gesture to language and cognition
• Play Development
• What is play?
• Types and function of play
• Connecting play to language and cognition
• Implications for Clinical Research and Practice

3
Learner Outcomes

• After completion of this presentation, you should
  be able to
• Describe the connections between gesture and
  early language development
• Describe the connections between play and early
  language development
• Identify specific treatment practices that
  support gesture and early language development

4
How Does It All Connect?
Play
?
Gesture
Language
Cognition
5
What is Cognition?
Receive
Store
Process
Access
http//www.students.ncl.ac.uk/l.j.robinson/images/
brainscan.jpg
6
What is Cognition?
Mental Representation of Cat
cat
Ely
4 legs

long tail
kitty
Look at Ely the kitty!


Keekee!
www.mobileplayground.co.uk
7
What is Cognition?
cat
Ely
4 legs

long tail
kitty
Cat


www.mobileplayground.co.uk
8

• Gesture
• Development

www.literacytrust.org.uk
9
What are Gestures and Why Worry about Them?

• Motor movements that convey information
• Nonsymbolic and symbolic representations

http//www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov07/ac394_01
.jpg http//wop-daybyday.blogspot.com/2008/01/tel
l-him-its-okay.html
10
What Do Gestures Do for Us?

• Communicative
• Regulate behavior of others
• Joint attention
• Social interaction
• Noncommunicative
• Provide information about
• mental representations
• --Capone and McGregor (2004)
• Crais, Douglas, and Campbell (2004)

http//clatterymachinery.files.wordpress.com/2007/
03/dalai-lama-pointing.jpg
11
Types of Early Gestures

• Deictic gestures
• Communicative
• Nonsymbolic
• Contextually bound
• Emerge around 9 months of age
• --Bates and Dick (2002)
• Capone and McGregor (2004)
• Thal and Tobias (1992)

Pointing
Showing
Giving
http//www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov07/ac394_01
.jpg http//www.familygivingtree.org/images/Child
withToy.jpg www.unitedwaysatx.org/Graphics
12
Types of Early Gestures

• Ritualized requests
• Communicative
• Nonsymbolic
• Contextually bound
• Allow requests for actions
• Emerge from 9 to 13 months of age
• --Capone McGregor (2004)

Reaching
Cassatt's "Baby Reaching for an Apple
--communitas.princeton.edu/blogs/writingart19
13
Types of Early Gestures

• Conventionalized gestures
• Communicative
• Quasi-symbolic
• Emerge before 12 months of age

Waving bye
Shrugging shoulders
http//pamselectronicvoice.blogspot.com/2007/04/by
e-bye.html http//aaronwilliamson.com/blog/?cat1
0
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Types of Early Gestures

• Recognitory gestures
• Noncommunicative
• Nonsymbolic
• Develop around 12 months of age
• Capone and McGregor (2004)
• First play schemes produced

Eating with spoon
Talking on phone
www.buckstars.co.uk/blog_november.htm
sarcasticmom.com/braden/?m200807
15
Types of Early Gestures

• Representational gestures
• Communicative or noncommunicative
• Symbolic
• Emerge before 25-word stage
• Develop from 12 to 20 months of age
• Capone and McGregor (2004)

http//wop-daybyday.blogspot.com/2008/01/tell-him-
its-okay.html http//www.whijen.com/picsofboth/s
ep_nov2005/more_oct12.JPG http//bp2.blogger.com/
_3sMh31VZHMc/R2xOB80RM0I/AAAAAAAAAJQ/AOpwjPJSpYA/s
1600-h/chicken_dance_elmo.gif
16
Parallels in Gesture and Language Development

• 8-10 months of age
• Rise of intentionality
• Deictic gestures
• Intentional vocalizations
• 12 months of age
• Single-unit stage
• Recognitory gestures
• First words

http//aaronwilliamson.com/blog/?cat10
17
Parallels in Gesture and Language Development

• By 24 months of age
• Rise of symbolism and early language
• Representational gestures
• Gesture-speech combinations
• Word combinations

http//www.whijen.com/picsofboth/sep_nov2005/more_
oct12.JPG
18
Connecting Gesture and Language Development

• Early receptive and expressive language skills
  predicted via gesture
• Bates and Dick (2002)
• Gesture closely tied to early receptive language
• Acredolo and Goodwyn (1988)
• Similar rate of gesture and early word
  development from 11 to 24 months
• Gestures always predates expressive language
  skills
• Gestures replaced by verbalizations

19
Connecting Gesture and Language Development

• Gesture-speech combinations
• Bridge to language
• Additive
• Semantic relations
• Gesture speech areas of brain overlap
• Emerge just before 2-word combinations
• --Alibali and Goldin-Meadow (1993)
• Capone (2007)
• Capone and McGregor (2004)
• Ozcaliskan and Goldin-Meadow (2005)

20
What about Late Talkers?

• Gesture use and language production
• Curvilinear relationship
• Limited gesture use, limited verbal skills
• Increase in gestures as first words emerged
• Limited use of gestures once language use rapidly
  increases
• around 2- to 3-word stage
• --Thal and Bates (1988) Thal and Tobias (1992)
• Thal, Tobias, and Morrison (1991)

21
What about Late Talkers?

• Late talkers vs. late bloomers
• Both have early language delay
• Late bloomers use more gestures
• Gesture scaffolds language development for late
  bloomers (Capone McGregor, 2004)
• --Thal and Bates (1988) Thal and Tobias (1992)
• Thal, Tobias, and Morrison (1991)

22
In the first 30 months of life, infants are
building up rich internal representations to
mediate perception and action, but many years
will pass before their sensorimotor schemata are
as rich and resilient as those that adults can
access and deploy in milliseconds. (Bates
Dick, 2002, p. 10)
23
Stronger Mental Representations Via Gesture

• Gestures as contextual cues
• Iverson, Capirci, Longobardi, and Caselli (1999)
• Mothers gesturally support 15 of communication
  to 16 and 20 month olds

24
Stronger Mental Representations Via Gesture

• Gestures as contextual cues
• Goodwyn, Acredolo, and Brown (2000)
• Multimodal inputs by caregivers for children from
  11 to 36 months
• Larger gesture lexicons
• More diverse set of mental
• representations

25
Stronger Mental Representations Via Gesture

• Gestures as contextual cues
• Namy and Nolan (2004)
• Multimodal inputs by parents at 18 months
• May bootstrap early language development
• Namy and Waxman (1998)
• Purely gestural input by adults
• Symbol learning difficult at 26 months
• Slightly easier for 18-month-olds

26
A Final Note about Gesture

• Namy and Waxman (2002)
• Words are primary symbolic medium by 26 months
• Gestures continue to support language and mental
  representations beyond early language
  development

http//momocrats.typepad.com/momocrats/events/page
/2/
27
How Do Gesture and Language Connect?
Gesture
Language
Cognition
28

• Play
• Development

29
What is Play and Why Worry about It?

• Ambiguous definitions
• Play includes a range of self-chosen activities,
  undertaken for their own interest, enjoyment, and
  the satisfaction that results for children
  (National Childrens Bureau, 2004, p.1)
• Useful in helping understand development of
  cognition
• An environment for supporting cognitive and
  communication skills

30
Types of Play

• Nonsymbolic play

Exploratory
Single-unit schemes
Functional
http//farm1.static.flickr.com/45/138868332_7aee8a
b6b0.jpg www.buckstars.co.uk/blog_november.htm
www.lewisandsteph.com/
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Types of Play

• Symbolic and higher order play
• Rich mental representations
• Decontextualization

--Lyytinen, Laakso, Poikkeus, Rita, 1999
National Institute of Play, 2008
http//www.goldenclay.org/Kenya20Ministry.htm
www.koalatpreschool.com
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Connections to Cognition

• Piagetian theory
• Similar development due to linear connection to
  underlying skills

Language
Cognition
Symbolic Behavior
Play
Gesture
33
Connections to Cognition

• Current view
• Similar early developmental patterns
• Cognitive development still connecting factor
  (Tamis-Lemonda Bornstein, 1994 Lyytinen,
  Poikkeus, Laakso, 1997)
• Specific vs. global association

34
Associations Between Play and Language
Development

• Ogura (1991)
• Play and language development from 7 to 12
  months
• Tamis-Lemonda and Bornstein (1994)
• Language comprehension symbolic play skills at
  13 months
• Semantic diversity symbolic play at 20 months
• Lyytinen, Poikkeus, and Laakso (1997)
• Nonsymbolic play language at 18 months
• Symbolic play language comprehension
• at 18 months
• Correlation
• No correlation

35
Associations Between Play and Language
Development

• Bates (1976)
• Onset of first words onset of single play
  schemes
• McCune (1995)
• Onset of first words and onset of single play
  schemes
• Onset of word combinations and onset of
  combinatorial play
• Shore, OConnell, and Bates (1984)
• MLU and mean length of play schemes at 20 months
• MLU and mean length of play schemes at 28 months

36
Dissociations with Disordered Populations

• Rescorla and Goossens (1992)
• Functional play
• Same for children with SLI-E and language-matched
  peers
• Symbolic play
• Children with SLI-E produced more play schemes
  than LM peers, but still below TD age norms
• OToole and Chiat (2006)
• Symbolic play with children with Down Syndrome
  from 32 to 95 months
• Symbolic play and symbolic gesture comprehension
  correlated
• Play skills more developed than language skills
• Dissociation between symbolic measures and
  nonverbal skills

37
Whats to Learn from Associations Between Play
and Language?

• Play and language each arise from various
  underlying cognitive skills.
• Similar developmental trajectories noted for play
  and language with children typically developing.
• Does not imply causation
• Trend is not consistent in many disordered
  populations
• Play emerges from development of gestural skills.
  
• Recognitory gestures earliest play skills

38
Whats to Learn from Associations Between Play
and Language?

• Play increasingly relies on language skills.
• As play schemes become decontextualized and more
  complex, language plays a bigger role.
• There is significant variability present in early
  development of both areas.
• Play and language skills diverge over time.

39
How Do Play and Language Connect?
Play
Language
Cognition
40

• Implications
• for
• Clinical
• Research
• and
• Practice

41
Gesture and Language Treatment

• Gesture use and gestural support do not hinder
  language development.
• Investigate language concerns as they arise, even
  in infancy.
• e.g, Reduced engagement, little to no vocal play,
  and limited use of gestures (Watt, Wetherby,
  Shumway, 2006)
• Communication skills at 8 mos. strong predictor
  of communication skills at 12 mos.
• Support gestural communication before age 2.
• Gesture use at age 2 indicator of receptive
  language at age 3 (Watt, Wetherby, Shumway,
  2006)

42
Gesture and Language Treatment

• Support caregivers use of gestural supports in
  the home and daycare environments.
• Reduce family concerns and childs communication
  difficulties
• Reduce workload burden of early interventionist

43
Gesture and Language Treatment

• Support caregivers use of gestural supports in
  the home and daycare environments.
• Acredolo and Goldin-Meadow (1993)
• Toddlers taught communicative gestures by
  caregivers show larger gesture and verbal
  lexicons
• Namy, Acredolo, and Goodwyn (2000)
• Parent-child interactions in routine-oriented
  daily activities scaffold symbolic gesture
  development

44
Gesture and Language Treatment

• Support caregivers use of gestural supports in
  the home and daycare environments.
• Goodwyn, Acredolo, and Brown (2000)
• Redundant visual and verbal inputs by caregivers
  facilitates development of more diverse gesture
  lexicon
• Bates and Dick (2002)
• Environment with redundant cues would provide
  greater support for children with language
  development concerns

45
Gesture and Language Treatment

• Support basic and clinical research in gesture
  development and treatment with toddlers.
• Iverson and Goldin-Meadow (2005)
• Gestures serve as transitional devices to words
• What about transitional states of knowledge with
  toddlers? (Capone, 2007)
• Thal and colleagues LT research
• Would targeting gesture skills prelinguistically
  help reduce threat of later LI?

46
Gesture and Language Treatment

• Support basic and clinical research in gesture
  development and treatment with toddlers.
• Crais, Douglas, and Campbell (2004)
• Are developmental hierarchies for gesture useful
  with late bloomers and late talkers?
• Iverson et al. (1999)
• 15 of communication of mid-SES mothers to 16-
  20-month-old children supported by gesture
• What about caregivers raising children in
  poverty?
• What about daycare providers?

47
Play and Language Treatment

• Clinicians need to understand limited direct
  relationship between play and language
  development.
• Play is indicative of cognitive, not language,
  skills.
• Reduce time and resources spent on teaching
  specific play skills.
• Play can be seen as an environment in which to
  support and foster language development.
• Reinforce development of recognitory gestures as
  an early symbolic support.
• No word use until after onset of recognitory
  gestures (Bates Dick, 2002)
• Could help facilitate development of early
  language skills and better overall communication
  skills

48
Final Thoughts

• Language-cognition relations are many-to-many
  rather than one-to-one.
• --Bates, Thal, Fenson, Whitesell,
  Oakes,1989, p. 1004

Play
Gesture
Language
Cognition
49
Acknowledgements

• J.P. Scott Center for Neuroscience, Mind and
  Behavior
• Bowling Green State University BGSU Department
  of Communication Disorders
• http//www.bgsu.edu/departments/cdis/index.html
• Dr. Tim Brackenbury

50
References

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• Capone, N. (2007). Tapping toddlers evolving
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51
References

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52
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